The California Federation Of "Teachers": CA Teachers Union Reinvents The Constitution As Hate Speech
I got a propaganda, uh, press release from the California Teachers Union, mentioning the US Constitution, that led me to reply like so:
Remove, please.And it's crap like this that makes me feel really good about being for charter schools and against the teachers' unions that keep awful teachers in their jobs:
"a Constitution that was drafted to protect the interests of white slave owners..."
Here's a bit from their release:
STATEMENT FROM THE CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
CFT opposes the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch
President Trump's announcement of his Supreme Court nominee doubles down on the approach he has taken with his other selections. Federal Appeals Court Judge Neil Gorsuch is a conservative disciple of the late Judge Scalia and a proponent of the Supreme Court as a defender of the original interpretation of the Constitution--a Constitution that was drafted to protect the interests of white slave owners...
At the bottom of the press release:
The California Federation of Teachers represents 120,000 faculty and school employees in public and private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher education. It is the statewide affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. More info: www.cft.org.
Here, from The National Interest, David Azerrad explains. And then there's David Risselada, writing at Freedom Outpost:
On any given day, it is likely some leftist college professor is using his position of power to influence young minds into viewing the Constitution in a negative light. Never teaching how it guarantees people's rights and limits government's power, today's professors push their opinions that it was a document that protected the institution of slavery. Most kids have come up through high school even, believing that the United States was founded by rich white men who only founded the country for the purpose of propagating their own interests and protecting their power and influence. The founding fathers were slave owners and therefore they were racists. This is all the interpretation of left wing ideologues seeking to use the minds of our young men and women as vehicles of social change. While the issue of slavery certainly is a scar in the history of our nation, it is one that sadly is not being taught accurately.There are many elements missing from the story of slavery in the United States. First and foremost, the left would have you believe that slavery was primarily a white imperialist institution that was used to secure the power of greedy white men in America. What students are unlikely to learn is that slavery existed all over the world, and as early as the 1300 and 1400's, Arabs were purchasing slaves from African tribe leaders and selling them across the globe. Men were sold into servitude for salt, gold, wine, and other goods. Secondly, African slaves were not even the first to be brought to American shores. The peoples of Eastern Europe known as The Slavs, which is where the word slave is derived from, arrived some time before African slaves. In fact, when African Slaves did arrive, they were treated better and were worth far more than the white slaves. Africans that had been freed from servitude had actually been able to own these white slaves as well. In fact, America's first slave owner was a black man, and by 1830, over 3,775 black families owned black slaves. These are just a couple of examples of what is missing from our history books.
The truth about the Constitution and how it pertains to the issue of slavery is quite different than what the radical left wishes to foster upon college students. While our founding fathers may have been slave owners, they were also men of conscience. It was the writing of the Constitution itself that actually paved the way for the abolishment of slavery. The founding fathers knew that a nation founded on freedom would not be able to maintain such an institution. In some ways, you could argue that the abolishing of slavery is akin to the one hundred year plan of the communists to change our culture. The founding fathers knew that abolishing slavery would be no easy feat but, nonetheless, they took incremental steps in doing so.
...While many in education are pushing the idea that the Constitution was written to protect slavery and that the three fifths compromise was a racist clause written to subjugate Africans, the truth is clearly the opposite. The writing of the Constitution paved the way for the freeing of the slaves and the abolishing of the institution from American shores. How many nations, at the time the thirteenth amendment was ratified, still maintained legal forms of slavery? Many nations to this day still do. In fact, the United States was one of the first to make slavery illegal, and that is what our young people should be taught. If you are a young student tired of your leftist professor's delusional diatribes, throw this at them next they say the founding fathers were racists.
You are never, ever going to get David Risselada's work accepted by today's activists. In order to signal their virtue loudly enough to compensate for their utter worthlessness in other fields of endeavor, there must only be one kind of slave, that kind is black -- and there is only one kind of "black", despite the staggering diversity of humans on the African continent. This most-worthy of humans is a near deity, having this status despite requiring constant attention from the activist in order to cope with the smallest tasks due to the relentless pressure of the murderous white race, and only the constant subjugation of the activist to the whims of the black person is reason not to immediately suicide due to personal unworth.
Meanwhile...
...saying someone is "African"-American is usually technically wrong. A guy named "Nelson" isn't an English-American even if his great^3 grandfather was the English Lord.
Radwaste at February 1, 2017 11:59 PM
There's a publicly available research paper I just got from Steve Neuberg, an evolutionary psychologist I know, who was at SPSP, the big psych conference I just went to.
First, Life History Theory is a little complicated -- it has to do with whether you grow up in a risky environment (like the inner city, say, with a single mother) or a stable one (in the suburbs, with two married parents who stay married and are attentive to you).
But this paper (by Keelah E. G. Williams, Oliver Sng, and Steven L. Neuberg) suggests that what we perceive as racism may have to do with our wanting to avoid people who are from a risky ecology, because they are predisposed (adapted) to have a fast life history (promiscuity, getting in trouble to get things fast rather than being able to wait). That's adaptive behavior in that environment.
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/310.full.pdf
From their abstract: "Study 5, which independently manipulates race and ecology information, demonstrates that when provided with information about a person’s race (but not ecology), individuals’ inferences about blacks track stereotypes of people from desperate ecologies, and individuals’ inferences about whites track stereotypes of people from hopeful ecologies."
There's more: "However, when provided with information about both the race and ecology of others, individuals’ inferences reflect the targets’ ecology rather than their race: black and white targets from desperate ecologies are stereotyped as equally fast life history strategists, whereas black and white targets from hopeful ecologies are stereotyped as equally slow life history strategists. These findings suggest that the content of several predominant race stereotypes may not reflect race, per se, but rather inferences about how one’s ecology influences behavior."
Amy Alkon at February 2, 2017 5:40 AM
Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 49% were slave owners. While it was drafted in such a manner that it did not harm the interests of slave owners, the Constitution was in no way "drafted to protect the interests of white slave owners." This language is nothing more than an attempt to incite resentment on the part of an already-agitated part of the population.
Several of the 55 delegates were opposed to slavery, even some in slave states. These led the effort to include in the Constitution language to curtail the importation of slaves into the US with the eventual goal of eliminating slavery.
It was judged more important that the 13 colonies unite as one nation than that slavery be eliminated, much to the dismay of those desiring the elimination of slavery at the time.
Both South Carolina and Virginia had tried to stop the importation of new slaves at some point before the Revolution. South Carolina to prevent further slave rebellion and Virginia to prevent the outflow of capital to foreign traders. Both attempts were overruled by Royal authorities.
Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence contained language excoriating King George III for blocking "every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce." The language was removed from the final draft because it did not ring true; Americans had been happily purchasing slaves from foreign suppliers for over a century. Virginia's opposition to the slave trade was rooted in its own economic interests, not in any moral opposition to slavery.
And the CFT, being full of teachers, should know that not all slave owners in colonial America were white. Anthony Johnson (no link as it ate my first attempt to provide one) was the most famous example of a black land and slave owner in colonial America. Johnson owned several indentured servants, white and black, one of whom, John Casor, was indentured for life (legally enslaved) after attempting to hire himself to another when his term of indenture to Johnson had expired.
Conan the Grammarian at February 2, 2017 7:29 AM
Since the link-eater is active:
www.nationalreview.com/article/444473/neil-gorsuch-ron-wyden-democratic-senators-unanimously-confirmed-2006
I R A Darth Aggie at February 2, 2017 7:37 AM
Well, if voting for something before voting against it doesn't disqualify you for running for US president, why should it disqualify you from serving as a US senator?
Conan the Grammarian at February 2, 2017 8:11 AM
Thomas Jefferson did not like slavery. He got a law passed in Virginia that prevented further importation of slaves to that state. He fought against allowing the new western states to have slaves. He wanted to free his slaves but it was illegal to free slaves except upon one's death. It was called "manumission"--students should look it up. George Washington for this reason in his will freed his slaves upon his wife's death, but she accelerated the process and freed them sooner (not illegal). Many of the founding fathers did NOT own slaves.
A very large number of whites arrived in US in the early years as indentured servants to pay for their passage. For a period of 5 years usually, they were virtually slaves, and many many were worked to death.
The bulk of US citizens only arrived in the US AFTER the civil war and could not very well have owned slaves.
Yes the US is the worst system in the world, except for every other country. None of these critics of the US has the courage to go ahead and move somewhere "better". They praise Castro but don't move to Cuba. If the US is such a racist place, why are Africans lining up to be immigrants? Because whatever residual racism we have is far less that the terrible conditions they face where they live now.
cc at February 2, 2017 8:14 AM
> Thomas Jefferson did not like slavery.
Hitchens wrote a whole book about him, and that was a theme. See August 9, 2016 5:03 PM.
Crid at February 2, 2017 9:52 AM
Yet he owned more of them than any of the other Founding Fathers. And he raped some of them.
And it really is a shame that these idiot teachers only look at the Constitution for one of its former aspects. They should at least appreciate the fact that the Constitution is a fluid document. That's why we no longer have slavery, because the Constitution has since been amended and slavery is no longer constitutional.
Is the Constitution to be damned for all eternity because of something it no longer supports? I wonder how these teachers would feel if they were judged by standards they once had, but feel they've outgrown.
(Although I doubt that anything they called "progress" or "growth" as human beings would be any sort of change I'd be proud of.)
Amy, aren't you going to blog about Milo?
Patrick at February 2, 2017 10:56 AM
IF everything Risselada wrote is true, fine.
But just when does he get around to talking about how, even though slavery didn't USED to be about race (just a matter of who had the bigger or richer army), it didn't take that long (two centuries at the most?) for white people in the colonies to come up with all sorts of racist, "scientific" reasons and laws to justify enslaving ONLY those with at least "a drop of African blood"? That way, after all, certain people could never become "subhuman" slaves that could be bought and sold like cattle - unlike in the past.
lenona at February 2, 2017 3:34 PM
Oh, and this -
"How many nations, at the time the thirteenth amendment was ratified, still maintained legal forms of slavery? Many nations to this day still do. In fact, the United States was one of the first to make slavery illegal, and that is what our young people should be taught."
- is WAY too vague.
If he's including serfdom as a form of slavery, that's one thing, but there are still distinct differences - serfs, IIRC, ALWAYS had more rights than American slaves did. How many European countries in the 19th century had slaves as opposed to serfs?
And I'm astonished at the idea that "many" countries still have legal slavery - one source, below, says that some Middle Eastern countries still have "quasi-legal" slavery, but how "many" can that be? More to the point, how is it any different from the "slavery" of, say, prison chain gangs in the U.S.?
Yes, illegal slavery exists in pretty much every country - especially India - but that's not the same thing. At least it's not something that any politician is about to condone - or try to make legal! (Not that plenty of politicians don't just plain ignore it, of course.)
https://www.quora.com/Is-slavery-legal-anywhere-in-the-world-now-If-so-where
lenona at February 4, 2017 11:33 AM
And finally:
Can anyone explain why, since The Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the slave trade in the British Empire, the British didn't mind supporting slavery in the U.S. up to the Civil War? (I have no idea when they changed their minds - probably long after the war ended?)
lenona at February 4, 2017 11:36 AM
Slight whoops - slavery itself, in the British Empire, wasn't abolished until The Slavery Abolition Act 1833. But that was clearly a long time before the Civil War.
lenona at February 4, 2017 11:40 AM
"Yet he owned more of them than any of the other Founding Fathers. And he raped some of them."
And?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 4, 2017 12:10 PM
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